Bruce Mailman, 55, Owner of Businesses In the East Village

Published: June 12, 1994

Bruce Mailman, an East Village entrepreneur who developed a discotheque and a bathhouse catering to a homosexual clientele, as well as two Off Broadway theaters, died on Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 55.

The cause was AIDS, said John Sugg, his companion of 29 years.

In 1965 Mr. Mailman bought two buildings on Astor Place and developed them into the Astor Place Theater. He also designed and built the Truck and Warehouse Theater on East Fourth Street, which houses the New York Theater Workshop.

Mr. Mailman produced several Off Broadway shows in the 1970's, including "The Dirtiest Show in Town" and "The Neon Woman," both by Tom Eyen, and "The Faggot," by Al Carmine. Legal Challenges

Mr. Mailman also acquired other buildings in the East Village, including the Fillmore East Theater on Second Avenue. There he designed and created a dance hall with a planetarium dome, called the Saint. Catering mainly to homosexuals, the Saint operated from 1980 to 1987.

Mr. Mailman also owned the New St. Marks Baths, a gay bathhouse and meeting place that was closed in 1985 by New York City Health Department as a public health hazard. He sued to have it, reopened but the courts upheld the city's decision.

In 1992 Mr. Mailman filed a complaint before a Federal judge in Manhattan charging that homosexuals were being illegally singled out by an Internal Revenue Service agent and targeted for prosecution solely because they were gay. The tax-delinquency charges that had been filed against Mr. Mailman were later dropped.

Mr. Mailman was a graduate of Temple University and received a master's degree in dramatic literature from New York University.